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"I have been a special correspondent for so many years," said Italian Author Alberto Moravia, 59, "and now I wish to be recognized as a journalist like all the others." In bureaucratic Italy, though, even the nation's leading novelist (Women of Rome, The Lie) must have a junior high school diploma to be certified as a professional journalist, and Moravia was a dropout at 16. The author dutifully rapped out a two-hour examination essay on his "general cultural interests," while embarrassed officials poked their heads in to ask: "Maestro, do you need anything?" Moravia next submitted himself to an oral exam (sample question: "Discuss modern Japan"). He still faces an 18-month probationary period before authorities will feel justified in issuing his press card.
It started off as the most sincere tribute that any girl has ever paid a vacation resort. For her first vacation à deux with Fiancé Chuck Robb, 28, Lynda Bird Johnson, 23, honey-talked the captain into spending six days at Acapulco, the site only nine months ago of her well-glamorized romp amongst the Beauty People with Actor George Hamilton. Photographers crowded round to record the sunny hours as the young couple (with chaperones) bunked in at a flower-decked house overlooking Acapulco Bay. Right then it started raining. It poured; it stormed; it was the worst deluge in the resort's history. Except for one dash downtown, Lynda and Chuck were housebound, running movies on a home projector and portable generator after the electricity conked out. Three days ahead of schedule, the dampened enthusiasts slogged off to the airport, making it just before a landslide washed out the road.